store manager

assistant store manager

sales associate

district sales manager

assistant manager

Spirit Halloween

Setup is intense, receive a large truck in a couple hours, setup an entire store in a week to two weeks max, hire 20 or so people from a small pool of applicants in a short time table. It's hard to find good people who only want to work 3 months a year at just above min wage.

Lots of pressure on the Store Manager to follow strict corporate guidelines that get worse each year. People who sit in a cubical or office all day make rules for stores that make no practical sense. It's become less personable, less fun and it's more about corporate guidelines than anything else.

Store managers start working to some degree at home late July/early Aug setting up interviews, getting things lined up for the store all of this is non-paid until you actual go in and do interviews. They don't consider these things when figuring time you worked. You won't see a paycheck til nearly the end of Aug while District mgrs start being paid sooner. District mgrs and operators get to go to New Jersey for corporate retreats but the Store Mangagers do not so they know nothing about what is new, what's expected that season etc. 

Most stores are/were consignment stores operated by individuals. Now corporate is trying to take over them all and forcing them operators to act as employees instead of owners. Which it rolls down hill from there.

When you get a bad district manager, good luck to you because you're thrown to the wolves. There's no communication from corporate or operator to the store manger without that district person feeding it to you, and if you don't get along with them, they will set you up to fail.

Pay is good for what it is as store manager but there's not much room to advance if you're under an operator vs a corporate store. At the sales person level it's low. They expect a lot out of these people who get very minimal hours most of the time the store is open. They're expected to work like dogs during setup and the last 3-4 weeks it's open. The rest of the time they barely get enough hours to pay for their gas to the get to the store. 

There's such a large gap between sales person pay to store manager pay and even then so to the district manager pay that it's ridiculous, it's cut throat. Everyone is fighting for the higher position. When the store opens in Sept it's dead. There are no hours to give. People get upset and start trying to pin things on the store manager in hopes of pushing them out and them moving up. 

Even though corporate says hours are 45/week for the store manager, independent operators demand more. Sales people may only work 15 hours a week, while the store manager ends up filling in the gaps working 50-60 hours some times, a lot of the time it's not even logged because you're doing things beyond the store on your own time, on your own dime a lot of times (like with gas money, vehicle wear and tear, sams club or costco membership of your personal use that you buy stuff with for the store, etc.) I've had to personally fund the safe with my own money several times because the store doesn't provide enough working cash to cover petty expenses and buy enough change with. They expect you to operate 3 registers with very minimal change. It's a real challenge on weekends and towards Halloween.

The corporate environment has taken all the fun from this store, sadly. Forced competition makes it worse, stores selling costumes at a fraction of the cost in Spirit makes it hard to sell. Then we get reprimanded for missing goals.

Spirit of Children is the donation program for local hospitals you're forced to try and get donations and customers get tired of hearing it. They set crazy goals you can never meet without doing drastic things like using old merchandise as incentive for donations (which is a no-no) but it still gets done by some stores, not mine but some that I know.

Spirit Halloween is a fast-Paced, No-holds Barred work environment that either molds you into a wonderful retail worker, or chews you up and spits you out. 

Spirit is a Seasonal employment opportunity that Lasts approximately 3 months, depending on the area/location. 

When you apply, you are essentially applying for 2 jobs. Underpaid Warehouse worker, and not enough hours retail employee. 

If you start at the beginning of the season, you will be expected to work 35+ hours a week doing hard manual labor within a very tight timeframe, at standard retail pay (which is, 3-4 dollars below what one could make at any warehouse nearby) 

Once the store is set up, your hours get slashed to 10-15 hours a week (except for management: Assistants get about 20 hrs, Store Manager is Full-time) During this time you work regular retail stuff until the last 2 weeks before and culminating in Halloween, in which every day is like black friday, slowly getting worse and worse. 

After halloween, you switch back into Warehouse worker, where everything gets packed up and stored away. This takes significantly less effort than setup, but is still hard work. 

Thats the gist of spirit, but some other tidbits that I can solve from other reviews I've read:

-Corporate vs Franchise: 
Like numerous retail stores, Spirit has Corporate-owned stores and Family owned stores, however the family-owned stores are quickly becoming less and less common. Most complaints I've ever heard About Spirit have been about family-owned stores. The only complaints that corporate spirit gets is the inability to haggle with prices, because we have a corporate standard price. 

-District Management:
District management, while overall are nice people, are overworked managers that have a million things they have to worry about at the same time, constantly. So if you ever see them, don't be surprised if they have no idea who you are/forget to do something for you. 

-Store Management:
if you have a good one, work is great. A bad one, work is awful. Your DSM only cares about if its good for them. If the numbers are good, and the store is staffed, but the Manager is a bad people person, The DM does not care. 

-Theft
Management always assumes that everyone is going to steal from them, because they mostly do, According to statistics. We hire people and on average have less than 2 months to get to know you. In order to keep coming back, the company needs every cent possible from every sale. So if something goes missing, the till is short, etc, its easier to to accuse and get proven wrong than tiptoe around the subject. 

However this should all be taken with a grain of salt. The company tries to do good, and succeeds on many fronts to bring people happy halloweens year after year. There are a lot of variations to each store, and if someone or something does not get communicated properly, people can get upset due to misunderstandings. I love the company and the joy it brings to people and will gladly go through the trouble again and again to make sure people have a happy halloween.

The work environment at Spirit Halloween is incredibly hostile. There is very little communication between any of the departments, which leads to a multitude of errors throughout company materials and guides, as well as conflicting information. An email could reference a document with one instruction, while the email itself instructs to do something else entirely. You'll get a different answer from every person you ask, and your solution will likely be considered wrong no matter what you choose.  

Employees are expected to dedicate their entire life to the job- whether salaried or hourly. Assistant managers are paid two dollars above minimum wage while being expected to completely run the store in the manager's absence and have open availability. Store managers are expected to work 60+ hours the last two weeks before Halloween and are shamed when they take days off. There is absolutely no training given to any employee under a zone manager, and even ZMs are given bad information. 

Stores are rarely given proper materials to work with and must make do with whatever is around. Hand carts aren't available, so shopping carts are "borrowed" from neighboring stores. While it's the DSM's responsibility to provide stores with basic necessities (toilet paper, tape, scissors, pens, etc), there isn't any sort of action to take if they simply aren't doing their job. There isn't any stability with scheduling for associates. During setup, most associates work 40 hours a week, before dropping for 4.5 hours a week, steadily rising again to about 20 the week of Halloween. Most stores run with only two people in them throughout the season.

There isn't recognition given by the company. The pay is too low and the responsibilities too high for being given very little true authority over the store. It is impossible to actually function and do your job while following every policy, and you will be blamed if something goes wrong. Home office employees have very little perspective of what actually goes on in stores, leading them to create short-sighted solutions to company-wide problems. 

They did not put their employees first during the COVID pandemic and required employees back in the office and stores during spikes of cases. They eliminated any remnants of safety measures as soon as possible. Despite seeming like an inclusive company, they don't have any measures in place to include preferred names and pronouns for store team members and racism and sexism are rampant. 

Overall, Spirit Halloween is a company that places profit over people whenever they are possibly given the choice. Store managers are purposely given false information and data in order to "keep them on their toes," while home office employees are given high expectations and short deadlines to complete key projects. While I absolutely adored my store team and made great connections in the company, it was at the expense of my time, energy, and peace. 

Working with Spirit Halloween was one of the best and worst things I ever did. It was fun because of the people I worked with. Physically it's draining because you and your team have to unload a huge truck with thousands of fixtures then another one with boxes on it. All of my staff and fellow managers laughed and called it a workout because that is exactly what it was. 
I wouldn't recommend it to people who like to be lazy and can't lift more then 100 pounds. I found myself more then once lifting really heavy peg boards that were about 120 pounds because the girls couldn't lift it, and I'm a girl myself. 
At the beginning and the end it's chaos. You have to be good with merchandising and following instructions. Can't be late otherwise it drags the team down. 
Having retail and customer service experience is a must. You get a lot of days where customer's can be really nasty and you have to know how to deal with it and smile. 
Management was the best. They were all awesome, even people form corporate. There was more then one time I messed up and someone had to come down to see what was going on. It always turned into a learning experience because upper management was ALWAYS willing to show you what you did and how you could avoid making the mistake in the future. I didn't get chastised or yelled at except maybe once.
Best part of working there was seeing the kids come through and try on the costumes and pop back out to their parent's while they giggled. The atmosphere was great. People laughing and having a great time. That was my favorite. If I was stressed, when I came into work, the stress just melted away because of my coworkers and the customers all having a great time.
I learned a lot of patients from this job. You have to be when working in this kind of business. Also learned a lot of valuable management skills, customer service skills and so on. 
I don't think I would do it again because it's so short lived, but I don't regret doing it at all. 
The only thing  I hated about this job was the building it was in. It was dirty, the bathrooms couldn't really be used because we never had cleaning supplies unless someone paid out of pocket to buy it, and there was no vacuum to clean our floor which drove me insane. 
The other thing I didn't like was with the donations. You're judge, in the company, by the amount of donations you get. They were overly pushy about getting donations and had us pretty much trick the customer to donate which lead to a lot of customers yelling and saying they weren't coming back because we were trying to take their money. Not only that but one of the upper management had called out store and disrespected my team because we weren't going to trick the customers.

Had a great time working here,

Management was good, and for the most part instructions were clear.

Tasks varied from day to day, and could range anywhere from collapsing shipping boxes to restocking to supervising the changing rooms to wandering the store in costume offering assistance to costumers.

Speaking of costumes, it is possible that you may hear that you're scheduled for costume duty, notice a creepy doll costume, and decide to wear heels to work on that day to complete the look.
Don't do it- the pain is not worth it. Stick to practical shoes.

Also, it would be a good idea to keep a roll of Scotch tape in your apron pocket. Trust me, you will need it, and the roll at the front desk will end long before the store does.
Repairing packaging, taping reservation notes on costume bags, and taping up the paper pumpkins that represent donations to Spirit of Children are just some of the many tasks you will most likely need tape for.

Other tasks on a typical day include helping customers find things, returning unwanted costumes from the changing rooms to their appropriate sections, and politely asking more rowdy customers to stop having sword fights with the props. Especially the realistic chainsaws.

It's honestly pretty hard to get bored with all the strange and wonderful things to look at.  Wandering the store during a break could be plenty entertaining- especially if you spot a costumer getting jumpscared by one of the animatronics.
Not to mention restocking tends to be a bit more fun when you're pushing around a shopping cart of assorted weapons. Or skulls. Or both.

Speaking of which, looking into the animatronics on the company site might be a good idea- I actually got one sold to a customer just by engaging in casual conversation about the thing.
(It was the bump n' go headless one that we let wander a corner of the store. One of my minor unofficial tasks was redirecting it out of the corners and crevices it somehow kept wriggling into.)
Needless to say, manager was pleased.

It could get a little hectic at times, especially towards the end of the spooky season, but it was great time.
Highlights included seeing the headless bump n' go animatronic lightly bump a customer from behind, causing her to latch onto her boyfriend in terror, successfully helping a customer locate a Bob Ross and Bob Ross painting costume for her to wear with her friend, explaining the wonders of retractable vampire fangs to a fascinated customer and getting to see the rare sight of some little kids putting the masks they were playing with back in the mask section when they were done.
Seriously though, those five year olds were doing something most adults didn't even do.  Expect to clean and reorganize the mask section. A lot.

Overall, I loved this job and would happily work it again.
It was not just a good first job, but a good job.
(And that's not just because of the employee's discount.)

Overall it's an easy job anyone can get. The interview was just asking about your goals and past experiences. I applied before the store opened and was hired on the spot. The store building part is lots of hard manual labor for minimum wage. You will be trained in how to set up displays, merchandise, and sort through shipments. You will unload the boxes that can be very heavy out of the back of the truck yourself so be prepared for heavy lifting. A lot of time is spent on ladders also. Also, the company trusts no one and you will have to perform bag and pocket checks on each other every time you come in and leave the store. Once the store opens for the season you be trained on their terrible cashier system that hardly ever works and you have to re-log into every transaction. You have to count all the money in your register before and after every shift. The company doesn't like to give people many hours so expect 4-12 hours a week until mid-october. Your experience will completely depend on management once the store is open. At first we had laid back management and it was a fun job. Then corporate came in and changed everything. We had to completely redesign the store but since hours were low and management was now not allowed to check people out all the pressure was on the sales associates. It can be a very stressful job when you have to open and unload merchandise, watch the whole store alone and run the dressing rooms. Just be prepared to multitask a lot because theres not a lot of help. The company hires many people and gives them as few hours as possible so no one ever becomes fully trained or knows what they're doing. If you dont get 90% donations you will be kicked off the register and may have your hours cut.  I suggest not applying to Spirit until mid to late September when hopefully everything is sorted out. Your coworkers will make or break the experience. Not a good job if your a parent looking for a side gig because schedules are constantly changing and never set in stone. Great first job if you don't mind lots of manual labor and a bad management team. You will be trained in lots of things that are great for your resume. Overall the company is terrible and treats its people poorly. DO NOT use their ADP pay card and set up a direct deposit instead. You will receive no support and not be able to check your card balance online. You will be degraded and used to the edge if you have poor management. Extremely high turn over rates for a reason very few make it to the end of the season.

This was my year and from beginning to end we were all over the place. We did not get trained at all we were thrown into this. We learned while we went. We were promised help when we did not receive it. The communication between the company and the team was never clear or on the same page. I am familiar with management it’s not my first job but this was just a mess I am very capable of handling chaos but this was just ridiculous I voiced my issues and they we’re not resolved. It was easy things that could have been resolved but they did not want too. DnDs we’re supposed to be done and processed overtime which I believed were being process on time but at the end I had to process all the items I finally finished and had to find SKUs for other items and we were allowed to leave until that was done. It is not fair to me that I have to stay and do that when if I had known how to do this ahead of time or had been in communication with the managers on how to do it we wouldn’t have had it piled on us this bad. If I was trained better on what the expectations were and how to do them I would have been able to keep up with all the task at hand. I also covered employees and the managers when they didn’t want to work or wanted to leave early. Went in on days that had dedicated for school and therapy and they took advantage of that now I’m behind or not able to go to appointments so I had to make sure to put boundaries. They still did not meet my needs. Everyone just did their own thing no matter how many times they were told to do this or that and I had to pick up the slack from the associates and the manager side. This is the reason I had to leave and the district manager gave me a very ugly message.  No boss or manager or associate have ever talked to me in such a manner no matter how I leave. I am not obligated to stay somewhere that I feel miserable I work above and beyond and have done so much for each and every company I have worked for not just this one. But apparently that goes out the window when it’s not convenient for them. The district managers saw that we were struggling with employees calling in and said they would bring us help and never did. Then get mad at why everyone is overworked and not coming in because the same people are working while others call in. I gave them my all and it wasn’t enough and when it got too much for me and I finally leave then now I am the bad guy I understand her frustration but also my needs aren’t being met and I’m being overworked because they don’t want to hire another key or manager. 

Lol jk I love it here but not enough to get a concussion lol I've never had a job I  wanted to go to everyday until here. I cry  at seasons end and count days until next season. Everyone is so chill and friendly. And the ones who love it as much as I do work their buttsoff. Management is pretty good actually. Considering what they deal with every season. Set up,  tear down, hiring and training almost an entirely new crew (mostly made up of teenagers) making sure everyone is staying on task and not lost and ready  to open just a couple weeks after initial set up sometimes not just one store but up to Like 8 is an  huge responsibility and the ladies I've worked under have done great imo keeping business flowing without losing their $h!+. I could not do management. I dont wven wanna be an Îwho and WHAT they deal with daily and id lose it on some one. And I love  my position in our storEĹ and inwanna stay loving it. I'd end up hating. I'm a year 3rd year stock room associate . I occasionally work the register to fill in but I kill on the floor and merchandising and just making the shelves and product look great. I'm good at it and so they keep me where im most valuable. Recovering Is not the hardest but is the not fun picking up after adults and their kids forcHours on end. PSA while.i have YOUR ATTENTION DONT TRY ON RHE MASKS. ITS GROSS WE DON'T CLEAN THEM AND EVERYONE IN YOUR TOWN HAS TRIED IT ON.  AND NOW YOU'VE MADR OUT EVERYONF AND EVERYTHING IN YOUR TOWN.  GROSS.  Also, don't bring your toddler in and let them tear every last costume off. The wall and then laugh like it's . It's not cute.  Ok Moving on. I love the diversity. They ask us our pronouns and prefered names and they use them! Were a beautiful ethnic rainbow. Another plus is the 30% discount.  That's the whole reason I applied. Was cuz I love halloween and so I could spend the money I make there in there and use the discount lol

. My only complaint is the fact that they won't let the employees work in the same-store As anybody that they are related to, dating, friends or living with. There should be exceptions. My husband and i work GREAT together. And he loves the store i work at. He will even come and work for FREE. At my store and they still won't even schedule him on my days off. Our store would be intip top shape if they'd put us on the same shift. They will lett u a work set up and tear down together but as soon as the doors open they move him to a different store and it SUCKS. ĻOL 

Later in the summer of 2022, while seeking opportunities for extra income(something just about all of us could use these days), I decided to look into Spirit Halloween.  Interested, I applied for positions at potential locations close to my home.

The application process was easy.  Later on the day I applied, I was contacted by a Spirit manager and was hired to work at a store in Acworth, Georgia.  I worked there from September 10 until October 30(seasonal position only).  The location was convenient, just ten minutes from home.  The pay was not bad for a part time seasonal position.  Fifteen minute breaks for four or five hour shifts.  Thirty minute breaks for shifts six hours or longer.  I got along well with management and other co-workers.  I had not worked retail in more than twenty years, but this was a favorable retail environment for me, not a whole lot to adjust to.  Halloween should be a time of enthusiasm, so I always did my best to make customers feel welcomed and accommodated.  For September, worked only on Saturdays and Sundays and mostly just four hour shifts.  From September 25 on, longer hours on weekends and more weeknights, mostly Thursdays and Fridays.  All of my schedules suited me well.  Bonus pay, as long as all scheduled shifts worked, within the last two to two and a half weeks of the store being open.  All in all, a fun and pleasant experience.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for 2023.  While the application process was as smooth at it was in 2022, the actual hiring process was nowhere near as efficient.  I did not receive any follow up contact until long after I applied.  The closest store to where I live, in Kennesaw, opened much later than expected.  When a manager contacted me and while I met with the manager of the specific store that I wanted work at, I was told that she had a strict limit for how many people she could hire at the time of the store opening and those whom had the most availability would be given priority.  I never ended up work for Spirit this year and I felt put off, considering how willing I was to work for them again.

If this review was based on my 2022 experiences, it would have been five stars.  Because of my 2023 experiences being included here, I decided to make it three stars.  Despite this year's disappointments, I would consider Spirit for 2024.  Hopefully, everything goes better next year.


There is nothing quite like working at a Spirit Halloween store. It is difficult not to find a certain level of fulfillment or at least entertainment in one's job when you are lugging carts full of latex body parts and plastic spiders to restock the shelves. 
One of my first impressions at Spirit was a manager telling me that Spirit does everything a regular retail store might do in its entire lifetime, all in the span of a few months. It's hard to fathom how much work goes into a single pop up Halloween store until you have experienced it yourself. For the right person, I could see it being an incredibly valuable crash course in the entire process of setting up, running, and tearing down a storefront. 
Needless to say the fast paced nature can lead to some chaos, burnout and even working conditions that would be considered unreasonable at other jobs. Also, at least in my opinion, the compensation is not nearly enough for what is expected out of sales associates and managers. They do offer bonuses for people who stay through the entire season and those who work on certain busier days around Halloween, and the employee discount is reasonable and stacks with some sales and promotions. 

Your experience at Spirit Halloween will vary wildly depending on the quality of the other team members immediately above you as well. A bad regional manager can sink the morale of several stores and likewise a store manager can make one store amazing to work at and another not worth the drama and frustration.

With all of that said, I recommend if you are interested giving it a try at least for a little while.  At the very least it will give you some incredible stories and a deeper appreciation for the level of work that goes into any retail store but especially seasonal or temporary ones. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Store manager 2178 salaries reported	$20.55 per hour
Assistant store manager 2111 salaries reported	$17.51 per hour
Sales associate 1842 salaries reported	$14.08 per hour
District sales manager 860 salaries reported	$1,125 per week
Assistant manager 12 salaries reported	$18.14 per hour

Working at Spirit Halloween: Company Overview and Reviews

Spirit Halloween

Spirit Halloween Ratings

Popular jobs at Spirit Halloween

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected